For Those Diagnosed With a Depressive Disorder

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If you were diagnosed with clinical depression, bipolarism ("Manic-Depression"), or any other depressive disorder, how did news of the diagnosis affect you?

If you "came out" to family and/or friends about the diagnosis, did their attitudes towards you change in any way?

Most of my friends know about my bouts of SAD, winter is very rough for me and I sort
of go into hibernation, some of my friends have been commenting on my facebook page,
wondering why I haven't been posting. I think for the most part my friends have been
very supportive.

my family knew about it, they found out the same time i did. other than that i tell people when the situation calls for it but it's generally in passing and i don't make a big deal about so i don't really know how they react to it or how they would if i "came out" about my depression to them. it's usually something like "well i deal with depression a lot" or "i get depressed pretty frequently" but it's usually said as an explanation for something so i'm generally not really looking for support, and don't really pay attention to their reaction to it.

I had clinical depression for a long time so it wasn't much of a surprise. In fact it was getting worse. Most people were supportive but it wasn't a big deal. I've had my fair share of negative responses. Some people think that clinical depression or a depression disorder is just normal depression. Many times I've heard people say snap out of it or do something productive and all I could do was try.

I'm just glad I got on meds that finally worked for me. It was a huge struggle for half of my life and not easy to explain to anyone.

Anyway, I don't usually go out and tell people I have a depression disorder. So it's not as if they knew unless they see me taking meds for it.

Third option here.

Family: "There's nothing wrong with you"
Friends: (didn't tell them)

goat

I had major depression, was self injurer, suicidal, and some sort of traumatic stress disorder with flashbacks, for to long of a time. I never told anyone, but I am sure people cold see it. I told my parents once that I was going to kill myself, they laughed at me, but they probably didn't realize because they where always to drunk or druged up to see my problems.
Anyway, that was before I turned my life around, and before I started bike racing. I am over that, its the past. I still get down every now and then, but I can think straight now. Also wanted to say that medication is okay and might make you feel good, but I think it is only a short term solution because it dosent solve the problems of why you are depressed.

Todd

By the time I was diagnosed, I was in my mid-teens and clashing with my Mom, so when it was made official, I think she took it simply as an explanation for why we weren't getting along, despite me being the one who asked for medical help. Give the kid some pills and a therapist, problem solved. So, I never felt comfortable talking to her about my problems, and when I was a little older and moved out at 17, I think she figured it was a non-issue.

In more recent years, I've attempted to talk to her more frankly about what I deal with, in part because I feel like it's gotten worse the past few years and I sometimes worried I may be near a point that I can't live independently. At first, she was resistant, trying to explain it away as everything from Crohn's Disease to simply "feeling blue" over certain situations. It's taken a long time to get her to understand that the situations are often caused by my depression and anxiety, not the other way around, and it's still very much a struggle. At this point, she's kind of reversed her previous attitude about it, though it usually requires me to give the same explanations over and over again, but it's better than before. She only realized a couple months ago that I have several now-faint scars on my left arm from my experimenting with cutting as a teen.

Friends have pretty much given me the impression that discussing it is strictly off-limits and is considered whining, so I just don't bring it up and nobody really calls, emails, or texts me anymore. I marked that I've been ignored or shunned due to how friends react and how my Mom was largely indifferent and passive-aggressive for over a decade.